Maybe Dreamwidth is as Good as it Gets

[bcholmes]

Like so many others, I keep getting depressed by the state of social media. I keep hoping that there’s gonna be a good platform with:

1. A non-trivial number of people I’m interested in following;
2. With a non-sucky UI; and
3. A reasonable stance on Nazis (for me, “reasonable” = “we don’t allow them here”).

Facebook blows, but it has all the people.

Tumblr was my second-favourite platform, but it clearly isn’t surviving the Verizoning.

Google+ is dead. Not many people, but good communities.

MeWe is all Freezed Peach!

I tried Minds the other day and it immediately recommended that I follow Jordan Peterson.

Twitter doesn’t lend itself to the kinds of conversations I want to have. I think it’d need some privacy controls and much better search.

Dreamwidth is great. Except that:

1. It has a really clunky UI; and
2. It’s a bit of a ghost town.

So, I’ve resuscitated my interest in building an iOS app so that I can access my reading list more easily. Dreamwidth is making it hard, ’cause their APIs are pretty-much non-existent. I’ve finally solved all of the hardest of problems. Maybe I’ll be able to love it more if I have better access.

Are you an iOS person? Would you be interested in giving an iOS app a whirl as a beta tester?

Mirrored from Under the Beret.

Comments

[krpalmer]

I happened on this post and thought "while my reading list draws on very few people, I do have iOS devices"... so I'm open to hearing what testing the application will entail.

[bcholmes]

I posted a follow-up post with installation instructions, if you're interested.

[sabotabby]

I am and this is relevant to my interests.

[bcholmes]

Cool. Gimme about a week to get my ducks in a row.

[sabotabby]

Awesomecakes!

[elusis]

I'm an iOS person but I don't read DW or FB on my phone, usually. OTOH if you are interested in making a MacOS app, especially one for posting, I'm there with you.

I thought DW's code was basically LJ's code, up to a point?

[bcholmes]

It is, essentially, LJ's codebase, which forked and went off its own way. Even LJ has mediocre APIs. They basically have two APIs: an XML-RPC API and their so-called "Flat API."

And both of those APIs have significant limitations (big feature gaps, and they were designed well before mobile was a thing).

[j00j]

I am happy to beta test an iOS app!

[bcholmes]

Thank you! I'll probably have something available on TestFlight in about a week.

[erik]

The DW team is well aware of the limitations of their current APIs. My understanding is that they are currently working on some underlying code issues that are preventing better APIs.

[bcholmes]

Sure. But that story was also true three years ago, which is when I was more actively trying to talk to them about APIs.

Last April, they deployed a first REST/JSON API (which only supports avatars, sadly). Perhaps we'll see more progress, soon. But THREE YEARS!

[firecat]

I can't sign up to test anything but I really hope this happens.

[okoshun]

I am also available to assist with beta testing.

[bcholmes]

Cool! A few days ago, I posted a follow-up post with installation instructions, if you haven't already seen it!